


The Flight After the Fall

by NataliePhoenix



Category: Cabin Pressure, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Martin!Sherlock, Post Reichenbach, when Sherlock left 221b and became a pilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-27 02:06:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NataliePhoenix/pseuds/NataliePhoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock lost everything with the fall, even his abilitie to stay Sherlock-keep putting John in danger. He even had to pretend to be a pathetic pilot in the airdot MJNair, worse yet John's on his next flight, and he knows it won't end well. John Watson's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Welcome to MJNair!" the cheery flight attendant greeted as I walked down the airplane to my seat. This was going to be a long flight, I still didn't know why Mycroft had insisted I take this oversea flight, something about a terrorist attack.

"Martin, it's alright, there's nothing wrong with the plane!" a tired voice called out from the head of the plane.

"Is there something wrong?" I asked, leaning heavily on my cane.

"Amidst the midst of this flight not the slightest problem will be found problematic for your flight," the flight attendant assured me, his bubbly voice sputtering just confusion.

"Sorry, what?" I asked, squinting slightly at the attendant. "Could I talk to the captain, please?"

"I'm sure that would be fine!" he smiled, as an old but quick woman made her way up the aisle.

"Arthur what did I tell you? No, I'm sorry sir, it's against the law to go into the captain's cabin and we're about to start up," she smiled quickly to me, looking like a crocodile caught out of water for too long. "Douglas! How come we haven't left yet?" She hurried into the cabin herself, the door letting out a breath of conversation as she exited.

"I'm sorry Carolyn, but I just can't do this flight!" a hysteric voice called out from the flight deck. Oh god, I knew that voice, no, no, it couldn't be. Stunned, I numbly took a seat.

The newspapers were right, I'm a fraud...

Goodbye John.

That voice, no, couldn't be. Just, impossible. And yet... and yet I couldn't help but hope, fantasize the thought that perhaps I really had heard Sherlock from the front of the plain. Such an insane hope really, after three whole years the fact that the possiblity even came to mind was just... pathetic.

I barely noticed as someone took the seat next to me yet almost bumped my head on the ceiling when the speakers above us flashed to life.

"This is First Officer Douglas Richardson, today we'll fly you to the United States," a deep, male voice said calmly over the intercom. "Sit back and hold on tight!"

I guess I'd fallen asleep to the gentle rumble of the engine, because when I woke up the flight attendant Arthur was standing above me, grinning down. I jumped slightly, having fallen back into the unsure sleeping habits of having my own cheap flat.

"Oh, hello," I yawned warily, glancing around to see that the sun had already sunk in the time I had drifted off.

"Hello!" Arthur greeted cheerfully. "It's my honor today to offer any hopes of assistance to assist and check on the livelihood of your living."

"What?" I mumbled drearily, squinting up at the nonsensical man.

"How's life?" he summed up, glancing at the man who sat next to the window, his jacket brought up to cover his face for an easier slumber.

"Okay, I guess," I muttered, still rather confused by his inquire. It was a white lie really, I'd fallen back into the same miserable habits these last three years as I had before Sherlock, but that wasn't really the business of this young gentleman. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

"I have no idea!" Arthur shrugged, laughing almost. "Skip just wanted me to check up on you in particular, didn't say why though."

"That's odd," I shook my head slightly, as though to shake off the possibility that he could even possibly be Sherlock. "Is there any possibility of me speaking to the captain?"

"During flight I must remind all reminders that any possible interaction must interact with the captain pre or post flight preferably," Arthur answered cheerily, I nodded slightly, sort of getting what he meant. "So what should I tell him?"

"Why does he care?" the man sitting by the window hissed, his eyes peeking out from under the coverage of his coat. "It's not mandatory for a random passenger's life story, is it?"

"No sir," Arthur assured him thoughtfully. "I'll ask Martin what's going on."

"The captain?" I inquired, my heart falling slightly. Of course it wasn't Sherlock, or would at least go by a different name.

"Yep," Arthur nodded before skipping off to the flight deck.

I settled back into my spot drowsily, feeling the odd stare of the passenger next to me. Suddenly, as I was almost drifting off again, I felt a stab of pain in the back of my neck. My head jerked back, snatching up a syringe that had been stabbed between my shoulder pads. My eyes darted about wildly, already a bit fuzzy from the effect of whatever had been in the clear cylinder. The man besides me was now inches from my face, whispering in my ear. "You're going to do what I say Dr. Watson. Get up and walk down to the flight deck." The cold steal of a gun tip poked at my head.

 

My stomach plunged. As I rose it was already a challenge to walk straight because of the drugs whoever this passenger was had injected me with. What was going on? I hadn't been part of anything important for years... Who on earth would want me at gunpoint?

"Open the door," he hissed in my ear, his blond hair rubbing back against my cheek.

My arm jerked forward and I managed to pull the door open, leaning heavily on it. At this point I was staggering heavily, so close to just dropping on the ground. Both eyes of the figure before me were opened to slits, but even through the dreamy fog I could make out the sharp cheekbones, the intelligent eyes... Oh god, how...? I couldn't think, couldn't breath, but the gun tip pushed me even further on.

"What the hell?" The first officer's voice called through the blur.

"What's going on?" Sherlock's unusually trembling voice came through.

"Don't play games with me Mr. Holmes," my attacker sneered, his breath still hot against my ear. "You're going to jump out of this plane and die properly or I shoot your precious doctor."

"Sh-herlock?" I asked, my voice pathetic and slurred. He didn't die? How could he not-I saw him, jump right off St. Bart's.

"I'm not Sherlock Holmes," Sherlock snapped desperately, his eyes flickering between me and my attacker, unable to lift his hands from the plane's controls.

"My sources say you are," my attacker laughed, dry and humorlessly. "So take a dive."

"Arthur, smoker fire!" Sherlock yelled, interrupted by a flash of white and hissing sputtering noise and the sound of a shot. But everything was going so blurry... I couldn't hold on...

"John, John, brilliant John! Hang on!" Sherlock called out as I sank to the ground and I remembered no more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's point of view.

“Medical emergency, request an immediate diversion to the closest airfield,” I said into the microphone, the fake quiver in my voice forgotten along with Martin’s persona. My eyes were glued to John’s figure, that was now resting comfortably on several blankets Arthur had brought in. I barely heard the reply, but managed to catch the name of the nearest airport to divert to.

“Skip, why did those people call you Sherlock Holmes?” Arthur asked, sounding rather unconcerned for such a big ordeal to just have taken place. 

“Because Arthur, I’m a lot more than you and Douglas know me as,” I muttered, tearing my gaze away from John only so I could fly Gurty properly. I had been so thick. Oh course Sebastian Moran had also come on this flight. The moment I saw John on the list of passengers I knew something like this would happen, and yet I had given into Carolyn’s prods because it had been three years, what were the chances there was still someone following him?

“But you can’t be Sherlock,” Arthur pointed out, his logic as flawed as ever. “He’s that brilliant detective bloke who committed suicide. You couldn’t be him considering how dead he is.”  
“He survived,” I murmured, starting the descent down.

“Really? That’s brilliant!” Arthur cheered, making up for the thoughtful silence of Douglas. “How do you know that Skip?”

“I am him, Arthur,” I gritted my teeth, paying little attention to the cabin crew I had spent the last three years with, all my concentration trained on the one army doctor fighting the constant battle for his life.

The silence that followed was heavy of unasked questions, probably because Douglas had shot Arthur a look to shut him up--which would have really taken some power to do. The time dragging on, we arrived with a clean landing from Douglas, and an ambulance came for John.

“I’ll be back to explain everything when he’s fine,” I assured Carolyn as I got into the back of the emergency vehicle with him.

“No, absolutely not. We have a flight in twelve hours and he’s not going to be alright by then,” Carolyn huffed.

“I don’t care,” I muttered crossly, getting in anyway. “He’s a close friend. I’m not leaving him, not again.”

Before she could protest the ambulance pulled away and we were on her way. They didn’t let me stand in as they cleared the drug out of his system and patched the wound on his shoulder from the grazed bullet. But I stayed as close as I could, and once he was taken care of and still asleep I sat by his side. Eating and sleeping was irrelevant, and after nearly half a day had ticked by he woke back up.

“Sherlock?” was John’s first word, his eyes barely opened in slits. “You can’t be real... You’re dead, I watched you--”

“I’m here John, I survived,” I murmured, tentatively reaching out so he could feel my hand and come to a different conclusion than that I was a figment of his imagination. “So did you.”

“All this time you survived? Three sodding years Sherlock, three years! Do you have any idea--my god!” he was now positively yelling now, with surprising strength for what he had gone through. “You couldn’t drop a note? Anything?”

“That man, Moran, had been watching you,” I explained tersely. Couldn’t he understand that the wait was necessary? How many times I had wanted to come back to him? Even with the three years of precautions he had almost died anyway.

He said nothing.

“You’re mad.”

Still nothing.

“You deserve to be mad.”

Again, silence.

“Silent treatment? Really John, how childish.”

“Oh, right,” John scoffed. “I’m childish. You’re the most--”

“Three bullets,” I snapped, desperate for him to be on the same page.

“What?”

“Three bullets, three victims--Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, and you--unless I jumped.”

“Oh god.”

“Yes,” I sighed, relieved that he finally got it. “But that’s over. Moriarty’s dead now. It’s all over.” The two of us sat in silence, the consulting detective and his blogger, finally ready to deduce again. Finally, no more boredom.


End file.
